Disaster tours are the most popular in post-Katrina New Orleans

[Herman Munster]

http://www.shreveporttimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070610/NEWS01/706100327/1060/NEWS01

NEW ORLEANS — "This is the last pretty thing you're going to see until we get to the lakefront," tour guide Rose Scott tells passengers gazing at the live oaks of City Park.

They're a bit more than an hour into a van tour of the destruction of Hurricane Katrina. Scott's employer, Isabelle Cossart of Tours by Isabelle, calls it 70 miles of destruction in 3½ hours.

Nearly two years after Katrina turned the New Orleans area into a lake of misery, demand for tours of the devastation overwhelms that for visits to mainstay attractions such as cemeteries, plantations and swamps.

"Our survival depends on it. If I quit doing the post-Katrina city tour, I'm out of business," Cossart said.

[GrumpyGreg]

1. Sickening !

[rusty charly]

2. Just like "How do I get to Ground Zero?" for New Yorkers.

[youngdem]

3. As a New Orleanian, I have mixed feelings

First, I was disgusted, and we all were.

Then, I came to understand something.

My whole family is very aware, very educated, very liberal, very informed. And EVERY SINGLE ONE of them that has come to visit has left STUNNED at the magnitude of the damage.

The fact that the devastated area is larger than the UK, the fact that 30,000 homes sit un-gutted today, the fact that homes washed off of their foundations still sit where they did the day the water receded in parts of town, while the vast majority of the region sits gutted and empty, with hope fading fast in the residents living in 140 sf travel trailers in the front yard.

I think that as tasteless as it is to wanna tour it, if it increases awareness and helps the country understand just how VERY BAD and widespread the damage is, GREAT. We are all for it.

We have a morbid pride about the whole thing. People casually ask acquaintances in passing at the grocery or at the bar how much water they had. A badge of honor for some to fight back from deep waters. At this point, we are less sensitive and more Machiavellian about it all.

I do understand your disgust, but that's my two cents.

[GrumpyGreg]

4. Your 2 cents is worth more than my 2 cents. Thanks for the

enlightening post.

[DemoTex]

6. I agree, youngdem.

I just hope that the tour guides provide appropriate political/social commentaries.

[KamaAina]

5. I didn't take one. I didn't have to.

First, as an N.O. exile (16 years), just seeing it on TV was (more than) enough. I had enough dreams those first couple of months so that I didn't need any tour. :scared:

Second, when I did go in Jan., my itinerary included a party at the home of a prominent local blogger and occasional DUer. Most of the blocks leading up to his house from the streetcar were still pretty much dark. Debris was clearly visible inside ungutted houses, several of which still bore the spray-painted 'X' markings from the search and rescue teams.

And this was in the heart of one of the neighborhoods that is recovering (Mid-City).

Later in the week, I met with the head of an emerging neighborhood organization in lower Mid-City. The major, four-lane thoroughfare leading to his office was, too, largely deserted. Indeed, workers were putting the finishing touches on his headquarters building while we talked!

Then again, considering the death toll (thanks Heckuvajob Brownie! :sarcasm: ), this could be seen as an updated version of a cemetery tour...